Iran on Friday said that it carried out an air defence drill using drones designed to intercept hostile targets in its coastal areas, amid heightened tensions in the region.
This comes a day after Pakistan launched air strikes against what it said were militants inside Iran in a retaliatory attack after Tehran said it struck the bases of another group within Pakistani territory. The strikes were cross-border intrusions in recent years and have raised alarm over wider instability in the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
“Iranian forces have successfully launched a new air defence method that uses drones to intercept and target hostile targets,” state-run Press TV quoted an Iranian army spokesman as saying. The two-day drills, which began on Thursday, cover an area from Abadan in southwestern Khuzestan province to Chahbahar in southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Security review
On the other side of Iran’s border, Pakistan’s top civilian and military leaders are planning to carry out a security review today on the standoff with Iran. Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar will chair a meeting of the National Security Committee, with all the military services chiefs in attendance, the information minister, Murtaza Solangi, told Reuters by telephone.
The review aims at a “broad national security review in the aftermath of the Iran-Pakistan incidents”, Solangi said. PM Kakar cut short a visit to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos and flew home on Thursday. Meanwhile, Beijing has said it was willing to mediate tensions between the two neighbours. China is a close partner of both nations, who enjoy extensive military and economic ties with Beijing and play important roles in its geopolitical ambitions.
Iran and Pakistan have a history of rocky ties but both have signalled a desire to cool tensions in the wake of this week’s strikes, that happened against the backdrop of the war in Gaza. Iran has also launched strikes on Syria against what it said were Islamic State sites, and Iraq, where it said it had struck an Israeli espionage centre.
(With agency inputs)
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